When Fear Grips Me
by Alex E. Andras
Summary: Fear grows in darkness; if you think there's a bogeyman around, turn on the light.' Sam is trapped, lost and alone, are his fears for himself or his family?


When Fear Grips Me

It takes him a while to realise.

It's dark and he's cold and his body is hurting, but it takes him a while to realise, they had been hunting earlier that night, and training much of the day prior to that, so he attributes the hurt he's feeling to that, and it is cold because Dean has stolen all of the covers again, maybe because he was cold and did it subconsciously, or because he's pissed and feels Sam needs to be taught a lesson. And it's dark. Not that night-time, you should still be asleep, can just about make out the shape of things in the room dark, but pitch black, solid darkness, the suffocating tar thick black you get at the bottom of mines and space and anywhere else the sun is completely unable to reach.

But that is not what clues him in, not what makes him realise, understand. Perhaps his body is hurting too much for him to realise, or the coils of sleep are thick and strangling his brain of thought, but this solid, suffocating darkness does not clue him in to anything.

Instead he only realises when he shifts, moves his body slightly to ease the pain in his joints and reaches out with one hand, reaching to his left in the hope of untangling the covers from Dean and dragging some of the warmth back over himself.

His head thuds against wood, sending a shot of pain from the back to explode before his eyeballs, and the entire body shift allows him to realise that he is curled up, scrunched up, his knees about level with his shoulders, one arm twisted behind his body. His left hand thuds dully against a solid mass that feels less like Dean and more like wood.

Now he realises. Now he senses, feels the trouble he is in, and that fog that had previously covered his brain lifts, the tendrils pull back. But he doesn't panic yet. Dean has before, when they were younger and smaller and Sam slept a lot heavier, picked his brother up and put him in a closet and pulled a chair in front of it. He had later claimed, sworn blind for months, that he had been protecting Sam from something in the house, but the younger Winchester boy is not so sure that is the truth. Maybe it was the slight smirk playing at Dean's mouth, or that particular glint in his eyes, but Sam found himself hard pressed to believe it.

So for now he doesn't panic, his rational side is fighting him, telling him there is no way that Dean was able to pick him up without waking him, mainly because Sam has slept lighter than Dean since he was twelve, but also because Sam at fifteen has finally put on some growth, finally achieving some height, and is almost as tall as Dean now, and also because when Dean had gone one-on-one with an angry spirit in their last hunt Dean had faired, admittedly, better than the spirit, but had still managed to dislocate his arm and his wrist, Sam severely doubted his brother would have been able to lift him with that injury.

But he still doesn't panic, just stays in the cramped up position he has finally found himself in, knees to his shoulders, body aching, and tries to piece together what was going on.

The hand caught beneath his body he can't move, either his weight had sent it to sleep or there is something wrong with it, so his search of his surroundings is done with only one questing hand.

Fingers ghosting across the wall of wood his hand had already hit, and he shifts awkwardly to ghost fingers along the opposite wall, finding the same mass of wood at that side as well, the shift to try and find the wall beyond his feet resulting in his body slipping awkwardly, wedging in the tight space he has found himself in, one foot smacking heavily into the wood at his feet, one knee slipping forwards to slam into his head, pain exploding from the front backwards, causing him to still.

The pain recedes, and Sam still stays frozen, scrunched up with one knee now pressed close to his face, breath hitting against cold skin. He'd stripped down to his boxers before tumbling into bed, and he wholly remembers going to bed, remembers them returning to the small house they were currently renting. He tries to remember the closets in the house, but the one in the room he and Dean are sharing is missing a door, and the one in their fathers room is filled with bags of guns and books, and the doors hadn't opened when they'd first moved in, and by rectifying that John had put a nice hole into the doors kicking them in at the bottom, and the doors no longer hang straight on their hinges and creak open on their own accord during the night.

Besides which, and now fingers are questing above his head, making contact once again with wood, the prison he has found himself to be in is not nearly tall enough to be a closet, perhaps a cupboard, but he can't see how Dean would have been able to fit him into a cupboard, or why he would do it at all.

His hand drops, brushes past his head as it does so, and then he brings it back up again, and panic finally set in as he grappled to find purchase against the blindfold that is tied tightly over his eyes, fingers scrabbling to get a grip on the coarse material and only succeeding in placing scratches on his face instead, the cloth tied too tightly, and with his body in such a tight and awkward position, his whole being aching and with only one hand free he can't pull it away from his eyes, can't remove at least some of the suffocating dark, and that increases the panic, makes his heart thrum in his ears, his body heaving as he pants in air.

He finally ceases the effort to remove the blindfold, too panicked to do anything but further damage to his scratched face, and the panic and movements against his head are making it hurt more, he can't get enough movement to try and push open the cupboard, and for that matter doesn't know where the door that would grant freedom is in the first place. He is able to take several breaths, to slow his panic, quell the fear, and realise he will have to wait it out, wait until his father and Dean came and save him.

And here the fear rises again.

He is trapped in a small wooden prison in complete darkness, has no clue of how to get out or where he is or how he has gotten to even be here in the first place or even how much air there is, whether it is an exhaustible supply or not, but more importantly, more urgently, he has no idea where his family is. For all he knows Dean is also trapped, or their dad, or both of them, for all he knows they could be just beyond the walls of his prison, in prisons of their own, perhaps waiting for each other or him to rescue them.

The fear that takes over now is not that he is trapped in a box, although that is still a continuing factor that plays in his mind and in his fear, forcing his chest to constrict, but what truly draws the harsh pants from him as he fights for air is the thought that his family could also be trapped, lodged in small wooden boxes with limited air supplies, awaiting rescue until they died, lost and forgotten in wooden prisons.

The fear and lack of air causes his body to shake, and his free hand knocks repeatedly into the wall, a continuous twitch that he can't hear over the pounding of his heart in his ears, but he hopes that his brother and father can hear it from their own prisons, though he doubts it, but the thought is giving him some comfort, and his head is swimming. His panic barely pushing air into his lungs, and he is getting light headed from the effort and pressure in his lungs, and how could having so little air within his lungs increase the pressure there and in his head? His head lolls, and the tremors in his body that caused his knocking taper, the dull echoes he was feeling throughout his body becoming less frequent, he is close to passing out, and understand that, and although knows he should try and calm down some, try to restore airflow to his body, he can't pull his mind from the images it is conjuring, images of his brother and father dead and rotting in little wooden prisons.

Something collides with the box at his right, and startled his head flies up, smacking heavily into the wood behind it and again causing that pain to explode from back to front.

The dull heavy vibration of something hitting against the box comes again, and Sam stills, not daring to breath from anticipation, head still light and heavy at the same time, chest screaming at him to take a breath and still he stays tense, wondering.

Something shifts, he feels his little wooden prison creaking and groan a protest, and then cold air washes over him, making his body shiver and curl tighter against the solid wood to his left.

"Sammy?" The voice is all he needed for him to heave in air, lungs suddenly working again, and he coughs against the intrusion of air in his body again, body shifting towards that oh-so-familiar voice, and hands grab at him, hot against his cold flesh, steady him as his foot slips and he realises that the wall that had previously stood against his right side is missing, gone.

"Sammy," the voice again, a familiar constant comfort through his life that makes him gasp in another breath of air, and his hand goes up, grappling at the blindfold over his eyes, whimpering as he tries to remove the barrier to prove that he isn't imagining this, isn't imagining that his brother has come to rescue him.

"Sammy, calm down," Dean's voice cutting through his whimpers, and a hand bats his from the blindfold, Dean's arms shifting his weight so he is leaning against his brothers shoulder so deft fingers can attack the knot that holds the cloth in place.

"Dean," little more than a whimper, a tiny whisper of a name, but he can feel his brother beside him, smell leather and gunshot and the musty scent of dirt that is Dean and the smell calms him enough that he stills completely, fingers gripping the smooth leather of his brothers jacket, and finally he feels the material over his eyes loosen and fall away, and strong fingers grip his shoulder and his chin as he blinks into the sudden dim light.

Dean's face swims into focus, pale and drawn and worried, but his brother smiles down at him before his lips press into a frown.

"The hell you doing in there Sammy?" he questions, grip leaving Sam's shoulder to graze across the scratches around his eyes, travel around his head to touch against a bloodied bump that makes Sam hiss and draw further into his chest "Scared the living shit out of me, disappearing like that."

"Happened?" Now that he is safe, now that Dean has him and Dean is safe, his body begins blazing with pain, limbs aching from cramped conditions and exhaustion has crept up, making him feel heavy and lethargic. Dean's fingers are ghosting across his body, finding several points that make him whimper and hiss; head, right shoulder, hands, foot, back.

"Another ghost," Dean explains as deft fingers moved "Not too happy we took out his friend, hit the house. Me and dad were worried." Sam looks into earnest eyes, and then head drops tiredly onto his brother's shoulder, breath hitting his brother's neck and washing back over him.

"Dad?" he asks quietly, body sagging into Deans, too out of it to care much anymore, but that nagging fear, the image of John rotting in a wooden prison still lurks within his mind,

"Just finishing with our little problem, kid," Dean promises, sensing his brothers need to know where his family is, Dean needs that as well right now, the fear that had exploded when he'd woken up to find Sam missing too intense for him to forget now. Or possibly ever. "He'll be here soon. Don't go to sleep, Sammy, you've got a concussion."

"Thought you'd died." The words are barely audible, but hearing them makes bile rise in Dean's throat. He'd worried the same thing when he couldn't find Sam.

"I'm alright," he says quietly, "We're all fine." Sam is shivering, and Dean hopes their dad arrives soon so they can bundle Sam into the car and leave this god-forsaken town with its god-forsaken ghosts and its god-forsaken cupboards.

"Tired." Sam's voice breaks him out of his thoughts, and he jostles his brother gently, trying to quell the guilt as he hisses in pain

"I know kiddo," he said "You can sleep in the car; just hold off a bit, okay?"

"Okay." Silence, filled only with Sam's still harsh gasps, and then "Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Chick-flick." He can almost feel Sam's lips curve into a smile as he said it "Jerk."

"Bitch," he responds, smile slightly strained, barely there. "Once in a life-time moment Sammy, don't get used to it."He hears Sam huff a laugh into his shoulder, and wraps an arm around his brother, trying to stave off the chill that is attacking the younger teen knowing he should probably take his jacket off and put it around Sam to give the kid at least some warmth, but he needs to hold Sam right now, assure himself the kid's there, and beside, Sam has practically an iron grip on his jacket, doesn't appear to be letting go anytime soon, and when the steps leading down to the basement they are in creak, Deans hand is curled around his gun and aiming before he has time to think, Sam, more out of it than awake must have heard the noise as well, or at least senses Dean's movements and apprehension, because he body tenses, fingers curling tighter into the leather jacket.

"Dean?" John's voice makes him relax, and Sam gives a minute sob into his brothers shoulder "You got him?"

"Yeah dad," Dean replies, gun being set on the floor beside him, wrapping both arms around Sam who is half in, half out of the cupboard – and Dean k new that the image he'd been presented with when he'd broken into it, the image of Sam curled in the cramped space barely breathing, would haunt him forever "I've got him."


End file.
